
A great cookbook is a wonderful thing.
Cookbooks have the ability to excite, inspire, tempt, and comfort me all at the same time. A good cookbook can tease me with drool-worthy photography, engage me in a story, or help me figure out what the heck I’m going to make for dinner. Whenever I’m in a cooking rut, I know that I can flip through a few of my favourite cookbooks for instant inspiration.
Below are my most-used cookbooks. I waited to write this post until I was able to really get a feel for these books. Actually, there are a couple books still sitting on my shelf that I haven’t had a chance to try out, so those will be coming up this Summer in Part II. There are also a handful of cookbooks still on my wish list for some Summer reading. Yes, my summer reading includes cookbooks…totally normal, I say. ;)
For now, these are tried and true. Some are fairly new, but already getting quite worn…
I guess I should start where it all began!

As you can see, this cookbook has received a lot of love!
Eat, Drink, & Be Vegan by Dreena Burton was the very first vegan cookbook that I purchased. Actually, when I bought it I wasn’t even a vegan, but just dabbling with this way of eating. I absolutely fell in love with the recipes from Dreena’s Super Charge Me Cookies and vegan gravy to her salad dressings and hide the lentils tomato sauce. ED & BV showed me that a vegan lifestyle was definitely an option in my life and it got my wheels turning.
Cookbook Highlights:
- While there are certainly recipes with soy products like Tofu and Tempeh, there are plenty of recipes without them too. It’s a good mix for someone like me who doesn’t eat tofu and Tempeh.
- Dreena provides helpful notes on the sidebar of the recipes for substitution ideas and helpful hints for ingredients.
- She has an entire chapter devoted to hummus. ‘Nough said. :)
- Most of her recipes are fairly low in sugar and oil. I don’t find myself having to reduce the oil or sugar like I do with other cookbooks.
- She uses a lot of whole grains and whole grain flours in baking recipes, such as spelt, oat, barley, etc. If you are trying to get away from white flour, this is a great start.
- Over 150 recipes and 16 full-colour photographs.
- Dreena has been working hard on her fourth cookbook…I’m already pumped for it!
Up next, Vegan Yum Yum by Lauren Ulm.

Vegan Yum Yum’s blog was one of the first vegan blogs that I started reading back in 2009. I love Lauren’s writing style, fabulous vegan recipes, and breath-taking photography. Her photography was actually one of the reasons why I fell in love with food photography myself. When I found out that she was coming out with a cookbook, I was thrilled.
Cookbook Highlights:
- There is a beautiful photograph for each and every recipe in the book. Some recipes even include a few step by step photos. This is pretty ground-breaking for a vegan cookbook!
- Lauren was featured on the Martha Stewart show for her adorable Knit Night Cupcakes. Yea, she’s pretty major. :)
- It’s a great mix of quick & easy dinner recipes and more lengthy ones. Regardless of their difficulty, they all turn out decadent, fancy, and great for dinner parties or everyday.
- If you are a fan of Tofu and Tempeh, you will find lots of recipes to please your every whim. Since I don’t eat tofu or Tempeh much, there are several recipes that I won’t make, but I still find enough to please me.
- Lauren isn’t shy about using oil or refined flours, so occasionally I will try to adapt recipes to suit my own preferences.
- This is without a doubt, my most used cookbook over the Winter months as there are a lot of comfort foods like warm creamy pastas and casseroles to suit my every craving.

Eric bought me two cookbooks for my Birthday that I have wanted for a while now – Clean Food and Clean Start by Terry Walters.
Clean Food is a seasonal guide to eating close to the source with over 200 recipes. I’ve never come across a cookbook quite like this one! Here’s why:
Cookbook Highlights:
- The recipes are grouped by the seasons- a chapter each for Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter. I just love this organization as it simplifies eating seasonally and locally.
- Clean Food challenges me and gets me out of cooking ruts because there are a lot of ingredients I have never used before, such as Watercress or Arame. For some people, this would be a cookbook nightmare, but I love trying new vegetables or grains because it’s easy to fall into a rut.
- With that being said, I wouldn’t say this is a last-minute cookbook. Most of the recipes require some planning and grocery shopping in advance.
- There’s a very detailed section on grains, vegetables, soy, nut & seeds, oils, and unusual ingredients like Sucanat or Kelp. Whenever I find myself unsure of how to prepare something, I go straight to this cookbook to guide me. This cookbook is extremely detailed and you can tell that so much work went into it.
- This cookbook isn’t vegan, but I would say that most of the recipes are vegan or easily adapted to be vegan! That’s pretty exciting.
- There are no pictures, which makes a visual person like me a bit sad, but I was delighted to see lots of yummy pictures in her second cookbook…

Clean Start is very similar to Clean Food in terms of unique, seasonally organized recipes, however this cookbook has plenty of professional photographs. There’s probably a photograph for every other recipe in this book. It’s about half the size of the Clean Food (with about 100 recipes as opposed to over 200 in Clean Food), but the quality is still very much there. I’m just loving the visual appeal of this book. While I only recently acquired these cookbooks, I’ve already used them a handful of times and I know I will use them time and time again not only for recipes but as a cooking resource. I didn’t realize this initially, but all of the recipes in Clean Start are gluten-free! That is pretty amazing.
Here is a shot of the Clean Food Cookbook interior:

Beautiful. :)
Now, let’s talk sweets for a moment because no kitchen would be complete without a couple dessert cookbooks, no?

Sweet Freedom by my Toronto-based friend, Ricki Heller, is a lovely cookbook for those interested in baking healthier desserts without wheat, eggs, dairy, or refined sugars! In fact, I’ve never come across a cookbook that makes such an effort to use natural sweeteners and whole grain flours quite like this one does. If you are sick of desserts with white flour and gobs of butter, this cookbook will push your boundaries and open you up to a new world of baking.
Cookbook Highlights:
- Over 100 recipes for classic baked goods such as Banana Oat Bars, Ultra Fudgy brownies (yum!), Chocolate Pecan Pie, and Cinnamon Walnut Coffee Cake.
- There are over 30 beautiful photographs
- Ricki provides many helpful hints and recipes notes for substitution ideas or variations
- Each recipe specifies whether it is corn free, gluten free, nut free, or soy free.
- Recipes provide Imperial/Metric measurements
- There is a very detailed guide on ingredients at the beginning of the book.
Finally, Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero.

If you are a cupcake fan, you will love this cookbook! It has full colour photographs for almost all of the 75 cupcake and frosting recipes that will have you thinking of reasons to bake yet another batch of cupcakes. VCTOTW also won Cookbook of the Year award by VegNews Magazine when it came out. Woot.
Cookbook Highlights:
- Most recipes feature easy to find ingredients and it also provides tips on cupcake baking and decorating (‘How to make kick-ass cupcakes’).
- Fun, witty, and playful writing style throughout the book. (e.g., “Peanut Butter Cupcakes: We also call these Jimmy Carter Cakes because he was a peanut farmer and he loves solar energy. But no one cares about that. What they do care about is that these cupcakes are pushed to maximum peanuty capacity and still remain moist and fluffy. And that is almost as important as solar energy.”)
- Many of the cupcake recipes have a lot of variations that you can try. For example, the Basic Chocolate Cupcake includes variations such as Peanut Butter Chocolate Heavencakes, Peanut Butter Bombes, Chocolate Mocha Cupcakes, German Chocolate cupcakes, and even Chocolate Orange cupcakes! Cool, right?
- Cupcake chapters include: Basic Cupcakes (e.g., Golden Vanilla), Classic Cupcakes (e.g, Carrot Cake), Fancy Cupcakes (e.g., Orange Pudding Cupcakes with Chocolate Ganache), and Frostin’s and Fllin’s (e.g., Coconut Pecan Fudge Frosting).
- Did I mention that sometimes I just sit on the couch and stare at the pretty pictures? Eric calls it my ‘Happy Place’.
So there you have it- six of my most used cookbooks to date! Stay tuned for the Summer edition, Part II…
I’d love to hear about your most-used cookbooks too!
Do you have any cookbooks that you use again and again or have you found any new ones that changed the way you cook? Share below.
love this post! as a new vegan, I’m always on the hunt for great cookbooks–great list!! Of course, I consider your blog one of my go-to “cookbooks,” too :)
I love vegan cupcakes take over the world!
I hope to see all your best recipes in an Oh She Glows cookbook soon! :)
I use Whole Foods Market’s website as my “virtual cookbook”. With food allergies (gluten and dairy) they have plenty of options for me, at my fingertips. Like this simple summer salad idea (makes a great lunch or dinner) – Forbidden rice with sweet potato, red pepper, and green onions. Enjoy!
http://bread-n-chocolate.blogspot.com/2011/06/summer-salad-forbidden-rice.html
I’m obsessed with Dreena’s super charge me cookies – if those are any indication of the rest of her cookbook, then I think I should buy it! I only have Clean Food out of that list, and I love what I’ve tried so far. I agree that I wish there were pictures though!
Love this post! I’ve been trying to experiment with some vegan-ized stuff lately. I’d love to explore it more!
thanks so much for the reviews! I want some vegan cookbooks for my birthday, and I’m definitely adding some of these to my list!
Personally I never use cookbooks. I’d so much rather browse through blogs and see all the gorgeous food pictures and detailed instructions. All my cookbooks just sit around unused!
Okay I’ll admit, I don’t own a single cookbook. But I totally use recipes that I find online from Eat, Drink, Be Vegan. I am going to purchase the book one day. I swear. But for the most part, I use your recipes(!) and those from the other blogs I read. You guys just keep supplying such delicious food so who needs a cookbook?! :-)
Btw, have you checked out Elena’s cookbooks? She even has one entirely devoted to cupcakes (!!). They’re all gluten free, which I know you aren’t, but nevertheless, they are FANTASTIC.
(http://www.elanaspantry.com/)
I don’t know if anyone mentioned it but, QUINOA 365 is an awesome cookbook. I’ve never used a cookbook as much as I have that one. Also, I recently started using REFRESH by Ruth Tul. Both of these are my go to books:)
I LOVE cookbooks!!! I am also working my way toward becoming vegan, and these suggestions for new cookbooks will really help. The only one I have so far is Clean Food.
I adore Sally Schneider’s A New Way To Cook. Although not vegan or even vegetarian, Sally has an excellent eye for healthy cooking: she uses little meat and dairy, and lots of fresh veg and beans. Her glossaries and quick-reference pages for cooking beans and grains are bookmarked and ready on my countertop at all times. I rave still more in my Amazon review, in case you need a little more convincing before you rush out and buy a copy! :) http://www.amazon.com/review/R1D3X6JNZ7PKCV/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm
Love your blog and just had to comment this time. I got The Vegetarian Collection for Christmas and love it. Published by Canadian Living magazine it has lots of easy, off the pantry shelf recipes. Definitely my go to cookbook.
Ohh I spotted that book the otehr day and was curious! Thanks for letting me know.
Great reviews! ED&BV is one of my favorites too. I also recently got “Appetite for Reduction” and love it!
oo those clean books look great! I love cookbooks but infrequently use them haha. I find that I’m too finicky. But recently I’ve had some great successes. i may have to check these out. Thanks!
Oh, where do start? I have SO many cookbooks. I guess the Williams-Sonoma cookbook series gets the most wear — especially the Seafood, Pasta, and Risotto editions! I also bought my husband a Bobby Flay book that gets pulled out quite a bit and last year gave him a Mario Battali one that is now on frequent rotation.
Besides actual cookbooks, I find a ton of ideas on many of the blogs I follow. My in-laws also give us an annual subscription to either Bon Appetit or Food & Wine magazines and those are very (very) frequent sources of the recipes we try.
I have eyed several vegetarian and vegan cookbooks in the bookstore but couldn’t quite decide which one(s) to try first. We have been steadily adding “meatless” meals to our diets and I am in need of fresh ideas that ensure we still get enough protein. So thanks for the recs!
Angela, thanks for the vegan cookbook reviews! It pointed me to the Vegan Yum Yum blog and I ordered the cook book today.
Just yesterday I received the Ottolenghi book PLENTY which is absolutely gorgeous and inspiring recipes; they are vegetarian, but many are also vegan. I had seen a store copy in a local Williams-Sonoma and browsing it I knew I would make many recipes. I recommend it!
I LOVE VCTOTW, as well as Isa and Terry’s cookie book – so many good recipes, and although they’re not always the healthiest, I’ve had great luck with adapting the recipes to use whole grain flours, less oil, etc.
My favorite cookbooks are definitely any of Isa Chandra Moscowitz’s but Appetite for Reduction is my recent favorite – it’s a low fat cookbook, so I do add things like nuts and avocados to the recipes as I’m not looking to lose weight, but the recipes are fantastic! And a huge chunk of them are gluten free, and there’s definitely a huge focus on vegetables, grains, and beans. It’s also super pantry and budget friendly, which is great for students like myself (or anyone really!).
I also use the Internet (especially sites like yours, Healthful Pursuit, No Meat Athlete, Foodgawker, etc.) for lots of inspiration!
Hey thanks for the reviews! My favorite staple recipe book is 1000 Vegan Recipes, but I love all of Isa’s cookbooks for really fun recipes!
Like I’ve said before, I really want to grab a copy of Dreena’s books. But I love Alice Walter’s books, and definitely look towards cookbooks for inspiration, especially in food photography!
I love cookbooks and I sometimes have more than 10 out at a tiem from the library! I have read a few of these but the ones I haven’t sound awesome. I definately need to read them